


that knits up the raveled sleave of care

by NeverEverFaceTheDark



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Roughhousing, a little bit of kissing, accidental she-ra transformations, and the feelings are 'i love adora', but even more fluff, just a BIT of angst - oh shit that was the whole bottle, lots of banter, melog is there and projects catra's feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24508546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverEverFaceTheDark/pseuds/NeverEverFaceTheDark
Summary: Her pulse wouldn't stop racing, and she couldn't quite catch her breath. She'd never felt likethiswhen they'd played as kids - not quite. It made her think of late nights, whispering after lights out, shadows finally banished by the dark.She smelled really good."Are you sniffing me?" Adora teased. The impulse to deny it came screaming from the depths of her brain. Then she grinned.She lifted herself up to look into Adora's eyes."So?" she purred, their noses inches apart.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 511





	that knits up the raveled sleave of care

**Author's Note:**

> "Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,  
> The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,  
> Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,  
> Chief nourisher in life's feast."  
> ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Adora had stamina - even as a kid, she could run any of the assigned drills three times over if she wanted to. She could chase Catra for longer. And that's why Catra was fast, and agile, and smart (Adora called it cheating). It was why she was always cataloguing weaknesses, or opportunities for a trap - every potential opening to go for the jugular. Incapacitate before she could be overtaken. They were taught to think like that, to constantly evaluate their chances - it was beaten into them. 

(Adora took corporal punishment like it really was a way to cleanse her of her failures. Catra scratched her disciplinarians' eyes out. That is, until it got Shadow Weaver's attention.)

Adora knew to assess and plan for a fight - but she didn't _have_ to - not like Catra. 

Catra knew that a single strike could count for everything, so all she focused on was how to do the most damage.

And how to hide.

Her attempts had been juvenile at first, hiding behind supply crates and under blankets. Even Adora had managed to find her. Though Catra supposed that, back then, she had wanted to be found. She quickly learned that few could see as well in the dark as she could - or lodge their nails into sheer steel. Dark hallways were _safe_ , and by the time she was 14 she had memorised every bot patrol in the Fright Zone. Better yet, she could scramble up walls to nooks and crannies that no one even knew existed. Being high up gave her a good advantage - neither bots nor people were programmed to look up.

Now. 

The world was no longer made of steel - it was made mostly of _green,_ billions of plants having sprung explosively from suddenly ripe earth - hundreds of years overdue. Magic tingled on her tongue every time she took a breath. It filled her with energy, made her muscles work better, made her leap farther, surer. As she ran and jumped, the woods whispered _faster, faster,_ as if in pure joy at Catra's presence. Fireflies lit her way, and it was easy to find purchase in the trees, to hide between the leaves. 

Not that she needed to, wrapped up in Melog.

It hadn't questioned her when she left Bright Moon, had simply felt her desire for secrecy and enveloped her in its magic.

It was soothing, and familiar, like a second layer of fur. She'd never thought that magic could feel like that.

The sky had brightened in the east when Catra reached the top of the overhang, climbing up from the outside along new growth and old handholds. Thousands of stars paled just slightly against the growing light. Newly awoken magical bird creatures had started to sing.

The Fright Zone had changed. As the sun crept over the once-desert, still-jagged mountains, the place became a riot of brightest colour. The reds and oranges and pinks of the sky reflected off whatever steel surfaces still poked from between leaves and flowers. Scorpia had decided to give most of the buildings up to the embrace of time and the inexorable crush of plant roots, but others she had refurbished, with help from Perfuma's insanely powerful magic - to house ex-Horde soldiers of both clone and Etherian variety. The living floral arrangements that marked these towers made them look like crystallised rainbow puke, in Catra's opinion. But she guessed it was Scorpia's kingdom now to do with what she wanted. The fire of industry burned softly in only a few places, less like factories pumping out an endless supply of war machines and more like hearths nestled in the depths of a forest. Entrapta must have started on the last parts for Carla - Darla's new 'sister'.

Melog lay down beside a shrub, letting out a soft mraow. _Let's nap_ , it said. 

Catra sat back against its side, one hand on its head for scritching. She breathed, as Perfuma had taught her to, trying to let thoughts and memories pass her by like clouds. It was stupid, but it also worked, sometimes. 

Catra had only just joined Melog in that state between waking and dreaming, her fur warmed by the sunlight, her eyes half closed, when a grappling hook finally clanged over the balustrade.

It was like a second, glorious sunrise, Adora climbing up and over the railing. The sight of her against the riotous sky made her breath stall for just a second. She allowed herself the feeling - the skipped heartbeat, the pleasant burn in her chest that followed.

Worry sat in the depths of Adora's pale-blue eyes and Catra felt a stab of guilt. It messed up the delivery of her line. 

"Hey, Catra," Adora said quietly into the silence, shifting with uncertainty and withheld emotion.

"Finally!" Catra managed at last, "I bet a snail could have got here faster!"

Adora bristled, affronted, and Catra felt relief.

"It's not like you made it easy! I had no idea what happened to you - and you didn't even leave a note!"

Catra blinked slowly at her, smirk on her face.

"Oh poor Adora," she singsonged, "can't follow a simple trail. How does it feel to have the worst nose in the world?"

Adora let out a sound of annoyance and rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth had quirked up. 

"I got here, didn't I?" 

She stepped closer, stopping right in front of Catra - still sprawled against Melog's side.

Catra tilted her head. 

"Wasn't that hard, was it?" she said, a small waver slipping into her voice. A lick of anger flared at the blatant sign of weakness - but she let it die down. She was safe. 

Adora crouched in front of her. Her face melted into that stupid expression that made Catra feel fluttery and agitated and _good_. Her tail lashed.

"No," Adora agreed. 

(She had always known to find Catra here.)

Suddenly Catra _wanted_. And it was allowed. She was allowed. She grabbed Adora by the lapel of her jacket and pulled.

"Wah-" Adora fell forward onto Catra, catching herself against Melog, who gave a sleepy little mraow-grumble.

Catra's stomach flipped when she put her lips on Adora's. _Adora's_. 

Sometimes it felt like this was the answer to everything, everything that had happened, every feeling she had ever felt for her. Adora. Strong and soft and awful and amazing and ridiculous and wonderful and smug and noble and dumb and annoying and kinda...really hot.

Her stomach flipped again when Adora carefully put a hand to the back of her head and firmly moved her lips against hers.

And Adora wanted _her_. 

Just when Adora relaxed, let her warm weight settle, Melog stuck its nose in and started licking her face. 

"UGHH Melog!" Catra complained as she tried to push it and its slimy blue tongue away.

"Awww," Adora laughed, petting its head. Annoyance flashed through Catra and she shoved so hard that Adora lost her balance the other way, landing on her back with a muffled 'oomph'. She jumped her, pinning her shoulders.

Pay attention to _me_ , idiot.

She'd miscalculated. The moment she perched on her hips, Adora flashed a smirk and put an elbow into her face, grabbed her arm and used her freakishly brute strength to flip them into a roll. Catra let out an outraged squeak when Adora pinned her. She giggled, but Catra wasn't going to let her win just because she was cute - or because having her on top of her felt kinda nice. She lifted her hips to loosen Adora's stupidly firm grip on her wrists, then slipped from between her thighs, tipping them over again. She realised she was laughing herself - high and excited. Like they were having fun, like they were just playing.

And they were. 

Catra couldn't really tell what the feeling was that burst in her chest - kind of painful, kind of not.

After a lot of growling, straining, hands in faces, trying not to fall off the platform, and reversing positions - they came to a stop, Catra on top, panting into each other's necks. 

Catra subtly rubbed her cheek into Adora's shoulder, though Adora's soft snort suggested that maybe it wasn't so subtle. Whatever.

Her pulse wouldn't stop racing, and she couldn't quite catch her breath. She'd never felt like _this_ when they'd played as kids - not quite. It made her think of late nights, whispering after lights out, shadows finally banished by the dark.

She smelled really good.

"Are you sniffing me?" Adora teased. The impulse to deny it came screaming from the depths of her brain. Then she grinned. 

She lifted herself up to look into Adora's eyes. 

"So?" she purred, their noses inches apart.

Something went slack in Adora's face, while the muscles in her abdomen tensed almost imperceptibly. Heh.

Adora slipped an arm past her shoulder to thread her fingers through Catra's scruff, palm warm against her scalp, the simple weight of her hand inviting her down. Catra closed her eyes and let their lips meet. Soft. So recently, that would have infuriated her, it would have made her spit with disdain, with pain, the overwhelming desire to _hurt._

Now, she languished in the feeling of Adora underneath her, lean and solid - squishy and perfectly knead-able in all the right places. Healthy - alive. Catra shifted, and Adora's hips bucked. 

Then Adora slipped her tongue into her mouth and she muffled a groan. She realised that she was purring - had been purring for a while. She couldn't help it.

A warmth started from all the places where they touched, pleasantly suffusing her muscles and bones, tingling up her spine - and a blaze of magic painted her eyelids golden white. 

Pulling back, she was greeted with a flustered She-Ra. Oh - this was _too_ good.

"Did you just -?" Catra sniggered.

"Shut up!" Adora said, blushing. It suited the electric blue of her eyes perfectly. Catra gently flicked her claws out into her giant super-powered biceps. They were both still bleeding kaleidoscopic light into the steel floor - making grass grow where it shouldn't be able to. Leftover magic returning to Etheria, like She-Ra was a magic sponge that hadn't been fully wrung dry yet.

"I just felt..." Adora mumbled, not looking at her, but incapable of keeping from smiling, "really happy..." 

Something squeezed deep inside Catra's chest and she swallowed. She carefully grabbed the gold wing-mask-thing and tossed it to the side, bracketing Adora's face with her own hands, fingers buried in her magically shiny hair. She pressed quick, hard kisses to Adora's cheekbone, her temple, her forehead, her cheeks, her jaw, her throat - feeling kinda achy. Adora made a choked little noise. Hmm. She nibbled a little.

"I _really_ don't mind it," she breathed into her ear, putting as much suggestion into her voice as she could.

Adora went red. Catra grinned. She would never get tired of that - being the cause of that - it felt like winning, but _good_.

She meant it too. She'd hated She-Ra once. Not anymore. Even Catra could admit that she was beautiful. She was a part of Adora. 

The new form helped. She _looked_ _like_ Adora, like a massive, fantastically powerful version of her. Not the ridiculous golden hero princess who'd stolen her away.

Adora's arms came up to loop loosely around her, powerful hands tracing feather light patterns on her exposed shoulder blades. She couldn't help the shiver that worked its way down her spine - couldn't help melting into She-Ra's warm body and nuzzling her face in under her chin as Adora moved her fingers up to the base of her ears. Her arms were a comforting weight on her. Weird, to feel so safe in a grip that could crush her, that once might have done just that, a grip she had countless times clawed herself out of before it could. 

It made her feel small, but....not bad. 

She purred, suddenly sleepy.

"When did you get here? Did you sleep at all?" Adora murmured. 

Catra stiffened, and Adora stopped moving. Catra _felt_ the apology humming on Adora's lips - and she exhaled slowly. _For asking a simple question._ She tried to make herself relax. 

"I couldn't," she said, a hand travelling halfway up to the back of her neck before she could stop it. "I couldn't breathe," she said quietly.

The arms around her tightened just a bit. 

The feeling of drowning - it just - wasn't a feeling that was easy to forget. When trying to sleep - with her defences lowered - the worst things managed to creep in like shadows and strike, again and again and again. Adora could only do so much, could only soothingly murmur into her ear for so long, could only stroke her back for so long, could only stay awake for so long. Sometimes she was sick of trying, sick of the bombardment - all the ways she'd been hurt and all the ways she had hurt others. Sometimes, if Adora was sleeping peacefully, she gave up and left the bed to roam the halls, map out the best places to hide, try to climb the spires without wrecking the stonework, memorise the night guards' patrols, count the unnecessary waterfalls, check again where the food was stored, guess at what absurd princess functions different rooms served.

This night, she had wandered into the council room. 

Well, that's what it was called now that the war was over. She'd played with the map projection on the table a bit in the dim. Horde and Rebellion positions had been wiped - all that was left were trade routes and markers for rebuilding efforts. Then she'd messed something up and the room lit up. Hissing under her breath she'd ducked under the table - and spotted the wall, aglow. Then she'd stood there for what felt like hours.

"The mural," Catra spat out.

She instantly regretted it.

Adora hummed, waiting for her to go on. Catra gritted her teeth. _Was she stupid? She_ knew _what was on that stupid wall._

"The Queen - Glimmer's mom," she ground out - throat tight.

Adora inhaled sharply. 

Spite lanced her heart. _You asked for it!_

Adora kept silent and perfectly still. 

The familiar flames of fury rose and seared her, protective - destructive. They burned and burned and then burned out.

Adora did not speak or move.

Unbearable doubt and self-loathing rose up in place of her anger - she had to - she had to get away -

Adora grabbed her tightly as she tried, as she struggled in acute panic.

"Stay," Adora said, pressing their cheeks together. Catra whined in pain, quietly. 

But she stayed.

Focusing on her breathing, on Adora's breathing, on the fact that they were alive.

"Sometimes I wake up and everything is so _perfect,_ " Adora said slowly. Catra blinked, chin lodged in the hollow of Adora's shoulder.

"I - I mean! I mean that, the war is over, and you're right _there_ , in bed, next to me. And...and we're not trying to - we're not fighting anymore. We're all friends. I - " Adora's voice cracked a little, "for the longest time, I wouldn't even let myself _hope_ for a future like that."

Catra hadn't ever let herself _consider_ it - decimating any thought that strayed close. Not until she'd already found herself in that future. Until it had saved her. Until it had saved Adora.

"And so...sometimes I think..." Adora stopped.

Catra waited, her claws burying into the steel beneath them, grass soft against her palms. 

"What if it's not real?" Adora whispered, like it was a confession.

Catra frowned in surprise. 

"What if everything starts slipping, disappearing - collapsing...?"

Understanding spread in her veins like poison. She wanted nothing more than to rip herself free now - but her muscles wouldn't listen, her limbs lead. She was a pathetic, paralysed sack of shame and guilt in Adora's arms. Adora's grip only tightened further. Her voice trembled.

"What if everybody disappears, one by one, and nobody even remembers them but me? Glimmer, and Bow, and...and you. And I can't fix it. I can't fix any of it even though I should have, it was my job, and - "

Catra was crying. She was sobbing, actually. Adora jostled them sitting up. 

"Catra, Catra, Catra, I'm sorry," she said, which was the stupidest thing she'd _ever_ said.

Catra tried to tell her that but she couldn't, all the air she managed to gulp into her spasming lungs came instantly rushing out in pathetic, ragged yowls. She hadn't cried like this since she was a kid, a baby, before she'd learned that blatant, _loud_ weakness yielded punishment. It was absurd, it was humiliating. She couldn't stop.

Adora was trying to peel her face out of her shoulder but she wouldn't let her. There was just - no way - 

So instead Adora crushed them closer together, a hand on the back of her head, a litany of sorry's landing in her hair - a clear note of panic in her voice and Catra wanted her to _stop_ \- stop saying that. It was like there was a giant ball of pain in her chest that just wouldn't quit _throbbing._

It kept her crying for ages. Crying until she was simply too exhausted to, weak hiccups stuttering in her chest - until her throat was raw and snot and tears had soiled near half of Adora's jacket. She hadn't even noticed the de-transformation, hadn't noticed how they'd crumpled back to the floor. She realised with a shock that Adora was crying too, more calmly, deep trembling sobs, petering off into frayed breaths. That almost started her up again, but she was too tired. 

They simply lay together for a while, a long while, breathing growing more and more in sync.

"What the fuck was that?" she croaked, eventually. 

Adora's chest jolted with a single soundless laugh.

The corners of Catra's mouth quirked up in automatic response.

She switched to Adora's dry shoulder, burying her disgusting face into the last patch of clean jacket. Another inadvertent purr started and stopped and started in her chest. The ball of pain had become a deeply rooted ache. 

Adora sighed very very deeply.

"But it's real," she whispered. Then she hugged Catra really tightly. 

"Duh," Catra mumbled, "dummy."

She was falling asleep. She wiggled until Adora let go and rolled off and onto her side, pulling at Adora until she rolled with her, turning her back into her chest and grabbing her arm, wrapping it around herself and clutching it tight. The grass made the steel feel about as comfortable as a Horde bunk. Melog appeared and circled them, shrinking and lying down so Adora could use it as a pillow. Adora moved around a bit before she was satisfied with how they slotted together. She pressed a long kiss above Catra's ear. It was Catra's turn to sigh very very deeply.

"I love you," Adora said.

That never ever failed to summon a sense of wonder - a thrill of near-disbelief _and_ obvious incontestability that filled Catra up to the brim with a warmth that _burned_.

"I love you too," she said.

She closed her eyes.

And fell instantly into a deep sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Not featured in this fic:
> 
> Adora waking up to an empty bed with empty arms - realising that Melog isn't there either (who Catra normally leaves behind on the rare occasion that she gets up early), freaking the FUCK out, scouring every nook and cranny of Bright Moon, panicking, making Glimmer panic, then Bow, who tries to urge everyone to remain calm while panicking. Calming down (she can go out on her own, jeeze), calling friends, going through the last two weeks mentally for signs that something's off, considering all of Catra's non-Bright Moon hidey holes and making an educated decision to follow her to the Fright Zone based on the pure gut feeling that Catra would want her to.
> 
> credit to swordlesbean on tumblr for the brilliant piece of meta on Adora's anxieties about reality after her experience in the portal dimension. absolutely wonderful stuff.


End file.
